Marketing Requires Knowledge and Method, not Techniques

There’s a lot of mystique and myth about marketing (and sales). What are they really? In this post we propose a solid, proven systems approach. Serious marketing leaves no room for improvisation. It requires thought, consistency and relentless effort. The methodical effort translates into consistent, monitorable results with built-in continuous improvement.

Marketing is not a “company function”

People working together in an organization do not do so in a vacuum. Even the most self-centered and inward looking organizations understand that “the market” is the reason why they exist. Within the prevailing paradigm of management, the market is addressed by the “marketing function” and their responsibility is to devise ways to address the market to allow the sales function to generate revenues. In a conventional silo-style organization, the marketing function crunches the revenue projections that prompt the CEO (and the CFO) to take action.

This is a very limiting way of looking at marketing. Instead of seeing it as a company function or silo, we can can think of marketing as a pool of competencies, or the know-how that can be lent to projects where needed. Marketing is essentially a work of intelligence in every sense.

A proven method for marketing and sales

Knowledge should be made available wherever it is needed. By thinking systemically, we can see that the method for successful production from the Theory of Constraints can be extended to the processes of marketing and sales and provides a highly effective, proven method. This approach is known as ‘External Constraint’ and marketing and sales are never separate but highly interdependent.

So what, then, is marketing? To paraphrase Goldratt, it is lining up the ducks in a row so sales can shoot at them easily. This is done methodically, first by identifying the market, then segmenting the market in a very specific way, based on the Undesirable Effects a particular segment suffers from. This is because by crafting an offer that addresses those undesirable effects and makes them go away, we demonstrate in-depth knowledge of our customer and increase exponentially our chance of success in closing.

The process of marketing informs the process of sales and vice versa in a continuous feedback loop. And these processes must be tightly interdependent with product design, purchasing and production in order to keep the work of the organization synchronized. That is why silos and company functions are the greatest hindrance to maximizing throughput because they artificially prevent the flow of vital information and “intelligence” when it is most needed.